No, Sharing the Bed With Your Dog Won’t Really ‘Ruin’ Your Sleep

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Time to tell your husband to stop kicking the dog out of bed! As it turns out, the old myth that sharing a bed with your four-legged friend disrupts your sleep might just be that — only a myth. A recent study out of the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix is the perfect excuse to snuggle up with your pup under the covers tonight without a second thought.

The September 2017 research, published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, studied 40 dogs who slept in the bedroom with their owners. Both the pups and the people participating in the study wore activity trackers that recorded whether they were at rest and sleeping or active and alert. After seven days of testing, the researchers found that both the humans and the doggos slept reasonably well together in the same bedroom. People did sleep slightly better when the dog was off the bed, but dogs slept the same amount no matter where they snoozed in the bedroom.

The dog owners had a mean sleep efficiency — percentage of time asleep while in bed — of 81 percent. Meanwhile, their lucky puppers had a sleep efficiency of 85 percent. Considering levels at 80 percent or higher are considered satisfactory, we think it worked out pretty darn well!

That said, it’s worth keeping in mind that sleeping with the dog in bed isn’t necessarily for everyone. Maybe you’re annoyed by waking up with fur right in your face, or maybe you have a young puppy that seems to never run out of energy when it’s time to hit the hay. If you’re not sure about what’s right for your pet, talk to a trusted vet to figure out a good compromise.

But hey, if the dogs and people are both happy, this is one practice we can definitely get behind!

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